In association with recent trends of the electronic instruments towards advanced functionalization and expanded applications into mobile tools, there are growing demands on higher densification and higher integration of semiconductor devices, and this has promoted increase in the capacity and densification of IC packages. Known methods of manufacturing this sort of semiconductor devices are such as bonding an adhesive sheet (dicing sheet) to a semiconductor wafer composed of silicon, gallium, arsenic and so forth, dicing the wafer to separate individual semiconductor elements (segmentation), expanding the sheet, picking up the segmented semiconductor elements, and transferring the semiconductor elements to assembly process of semiconductor device in which the semiconductor elements are mounted by die-bonding onto metal lead frames, tape-like substrates, organic hard substrates and so forth.
In this sort or processes, it has been necessary to mounting the semiconductor elements one-by-one onto the substrates or the like. In particular in view of adapting the semiconductor elements to area mounting system such as flip-chip bonding, it has been necessary to independently form solder balls thereonto, enough to complicate the processes.